The burden of mental disorders, substance use disorders and self-harm among adolescents aged 10 to 19 years from 1990 to 2021 and predictions to 2046 in China: A population-based study.

Prolonged periods of low mood, sleep difficulties, anxiety, anger, suicidal thoughts, and self-harm are all hallmarks of depression, a common complicated mental illness. The prevalence of depression has significantly increased in recent years, which has affected individuals individually as well as had socioeconomic effects on families and society at large. About 95 million people in China suffer from depression, according to the country’s most recent mental health statistics. Currently, pharmaceutical and psychotherapy approaches are the main ways that depression is treated in Western medicine. Antidepressant drugs, which work by preventing the neurotransmitter serotonin from being reabsorbed, are the mainstay of pharmaceutical treatment for depression. Among these drugs are selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, which include citalopram, fluvoxamine, fluoxetine, and others. It has been shown that patients who take medications regularly over an extended period of time experience some degree of efficacy. Nevertheless, prolonged use of these medications is likely to result in drug dependence and withdrawal symptoms, as well as arrhythmia, nausea, vomiting, and sexual dysfunction, among other negative effects. Psychotherapy has certain drawbacks, is expensive, and is comparatively sluggish. Acupuncture has been reported to have a potential role in treating depression, with fewer toxic side effects and adverse reactions compared with Western medications, according to long-term clinical and mechanistic studies by experts in Chinese medicine. However, the evidence base remains inconclusive due to methodological limitations of existing studies. The protocol for this study has been appropriately registered in PROSPERO, the International Prospective Register of Systematic Reviews, with the identifier CRD42024627732. This registration guarantees that the research follows established aims and techniques and highlights the study’s commitment to transparency and methodological rigor. To find randomized controlled trials (RCTs) examining the effects of acupuncture on depression, we performed a thorough search across several databases, encompassing articles from January 2014 to December 2024. Wanfang Data, the VIP Chinese Science and Technology Periodical Database, PubMed, Embase, the Cochrane Library, and the China National Knowledge Infrastructure were among the databases. The search was carried out by 2 separate reviewers. Both free-text words and Medical Subject Headings terms were used in the search method. Among the search terms used were “depression,” “acupuncture,” “randomized controlled trial,” and so on. In Table , we provide the PubMed search as an example to illustrate our approach.